Vehicles generally have a fuel tank and a canister disposed below an underbody that constitutes the floor of the vehicle body, and the fuel tank and canister are connected by a pipe through which fuel gas passes.
The canister is disposed in the vicinity of the fuel tank, e.g., between two cross-members that are positioned behind the fuel tank, in order to recover evaporated gas inside the fuel tank, and is thereby protected from rear collision. A mounting structure of a canister is known in, e.g., Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2004-143966 (JP 2004-143966A). FIG. 10 hereof shows the mounting structure of the canister disclosed in JP 2004-143966A. The mounting structure is described below.
In a mounting structure 201 of the canister shown in FIG. 10, a canister 202 is disposed inside a space formed by a body frame 203, a front cross-member 204, and a rear cross-member 205, and is in communication with a fuel tank 206. The canister 202 is protected by the rear cross-member 205 from a collision from the rear of the vehicle (rear surface collision).
However, in the mounting structure 201 of the canister, fuel must be prevented from flowing into the tube connected to the canister 202 when the fuel tank 206 is moved higher above the ground or when the capacity of the fuel tank 206 is increased while the position of the canister 202 is maintained. For this reason, the tube must be connected so as to be positioned further above an upper surface 207 of the fuel tank 206. However, there is a problem in that the tube and the front cross-member 204 interfere with each other if an attempt is made to place the tube in a position further above the upper surface 207 of the fuel tank 206.